“You are nervous. Why?”

Harumi shifted the yards of fabric in her wedding dress’s skirt an inch to the left on the limousine’s seat. “There are going to be a lot people at the reception.”

Which was an understatement. Seungri had managed to invite an obscene number of wedding guests, all of whom would be staying for the reception…including Seungri’s brother and his wife Phoebe.

“You have modelled swimwear in front of a bigger crowd.”

True. But the crowd had never included Seungri’s ex-fiancée and brother.

“Does your brother think I’m an awful tramp?”

Seungri reeled as if she’d struck him and his eyes burned with angry fire.

“Why should you think this? Do you feel like this marriage has made you one?”

She wondered how Seungri managed the Corporation so effectively with his lousy communication skills.

“Of course I don’t feel like a tramp because I married you. It’s just that your brother’s read those awful articles. I’m sure he blames me for Phoebe’s humiliation.”

“My brother does not blame you.”

She waved Seungri’s words aside. “Don’t be ridiculous. Who else would he blame? I was the other woman even if I didn’t know it. He had to marry Phoebe to save the family honor. I bet he hates me,” she wailed.

Seungri pulled her onto his lap, yards of white satin and all. He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “My brother does not blame you. He knows you were unaware of Phoebe’s existence. He knows where the real blame lies. With me.”

“But he’s your brother. He’s bound to forgive you.”

Look how many times she forgave mama.

“He’s free to hate me.” Seungri laughed. He actually laughed and she wanted to sock him.

“It’s not funny. Your family’s got no choice but to think you’ve married some kind of opportunist, five months pregnant with your baby and they’ve never met me.”

“My brother and my grandfather know this too is my fault. Do not worry, Harumi. My brother is content in his marriage and excited at the prospect of being an uncle. You made both things possible. He will adore you.”

She would have continued her lament, but the limousine slid to a smooth stop and seconds later the door opened. Seungri lifted her in his arms. She squealed.

“You’re supposed to carry me over the threshold, not to the reception!”

He laughed, a true Seungri laugh that she hadn’t heard since before their breakup in Paris. “I can do both.”

She wasn’t about to spoil that smile, so she demurred. He carried her all the way to the hotel ballroom where there ception was being held. A loud cheer went up when they came into the room and the next hour was spent accepting well wishes from their wedding guests.

Harumi rested in one of the many Queen Anne style armchairs set in small groupings around the perimeter of the ballroom. Space had been left in the center of the floor for dancing. She was looking forward to being in Seungri’s arms.

“I guess he’s not such a swine after all.”

Harumi smiled as her sister took the chair closest to her. “Hi, Cess. Isn’t this fabulous?” she asked, waving her hand to encompass the reception and its elegant guests. She was feeling incredibly happy for a woman who had just entered a marriage of convenience. It was all Seungri’doing.

“Can you believe the wedding?”

Chessie grinned. “Believe it? I lived it. I was your matron of honor, after all. The horse drawn carriages were a very sweet touch. There were so many red and white poinsettias and that gorgeous Christmas greenery in the church, you couldn’t see the pews.”

“He did everything possible to make it special. He kept asking if there was anything else I wanted all week long, making sure my every fantasy of my wedding was fulfilled.”

“And why should it not be?” Seungri asked from behind her. He came to her side and rested his hand on the skin of her shoulder bared by the dropped shoulder neckline of her wedding dress.

“You will only marry once. It should be the wedding of your dreams.”

She tilted her head to smile up at him. “It has been.”

He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips. “I am glad, my love. That was my only wish.”

If she didn’t know better, she’d say he sounded like a man in love. Even if he wasn’t, he had to care about her a lot to have gone to so much trouble to see her happy.

“Making calf’s eyes at each other again?” A man who could have been Seungri’s twin, but for his obvious younger age and dark brown eyes, slapped Seungri on the back.

“There will be plenty of time for that later.” Seungri’s hand on her shoulder tightened briefly in a reassuring gesture as if he could sense her unease.

“I do not make calf’s eyes,” he informed his brother.

Byung-Chull smiled mockingly.“If you say so.”

Phoebe, a beautiful woman with classic features and an air of youthful innocence, laughed.“Do not tease your brother. A man is allowed to look pleased with his bride on his wedding day.”

Remembering the picture she’d seen of Seungri’s brother and Phoebe’s wedding day, Harumi thought Phoebe must be intimately acquainted with the concept and said so.

Phoebe blushed sweetly while Byung-Chull put his arm around her shoulder in a possessive manner. “This is true,” he said.

“It’s not just reserved for the wedding day, you know. I’m still making calf’s eyes at my wife,” Hunter said as he joined the group, taking the chair closest to Chessie.

Chessie’s air of complacent acceptance of such an accolade indicated whatever contretemps Harumi’s problems had caused in their marriage was well and truly over.

Harumi looked up at Seungri. She was not at all convinced he’d been looking at her with anything near the adoring glance her brother-in-law bestowed upon her sister. However, she was willing to regardless. “So I can look forward to years of bovine expressions of affection?”

He stiffened with affront just as she’d expected him to do. “I am not a cow.”

After a second of shocked silence, during which the entire group seemed to assimilate her rather risqué teasing, they all burst out laughing, including Seungri.

There were a few more teasing comments and Chessie even went so far as to welcome Seungri into the family which he thanked her for with grave appreciation rather than his usual arrogance. After which, he leaned toward Harumi and asked, “Are you ready to go?”

“We haven’t danced yet.” And she wanted to.

He smiled indulgently. “And we must do this to fulfil tradition, hmm?”

She nodded, loving the look of indulgence in his eyes. It made her feel cosseted. He reached out his hand and led her to the middle of the ballroom floor, empty but for a few guests who stood in small groups chatting.

Their presence on the dance floor was the orchestra’s cue to move into a slow waltzing tune. She and Seungri took the traditional pose for a waltz, her train attached to her wrist making her feel like a nineteenth-century debutante at her come out ball.

Seungri’s dancing was divine and Harumi lost herself in the pleasure of his arms and their bodies’ movement to the music. Other couples began to join them. Chessie and Hunter. Phoebe and Byung-Chull. Several guests she did not know by name.

She tilted her head to look into his eyes. “Thank you.”

“For dancing with you?” he asked, a smile flirting with the edges of his lips.

“For all of this. The wedding. Keeping mama calmed down over the last week. Charming Chessie so she didn’t think I was marrying an ogre. Buying the mansion back for mama. I guess I didn’t think you were totally serious and yet you accomplished the purchase in less than a week. I’m stunned.”

“I want you to be happy, my love. I have told you this.”

“Are all men in your family willing to sacrifice for their wife’s happiness?”

A shadow passed over his chiselled features, but was quickly gone. “All the males in my family, yes.”

“That gives me a great deal of hope for the future, mon cher.”

He stopped, stock-still in the middle of a turn.“What’s the matter?” she asked, anxiously. Had she stepped on his foot without realizing it?

“Say it again.”

“What?” Then she knew. She hadn’t called him by an endearment since he found her at Chessie’s.

She could not deny him. He’d given her so much this week. She went up on tiptoes and still had to pull his head down so their lips could meet.

“Mon cher,”she whispered against his lips before kissing him. It was a kiss completely lacking in passion, a restoration of a bond that had been cruelly severed and left her bleeding. It had left its mark on Seungri as well and now they saluted one another with a kiss of remembrance and renewal.